TWS: Torture, suicidal thoughts, self-harm

Grian hummed as he put the finishing touches on his mansion. He loved building. It was almost like a trance he could slip into to escape from the world.

Hopping off of his scaffolding, he flew around the build, surveying his work with satisfaction. Smiling, he swooped down and swiped the sole support section supporting the stack. Scaffold  showered from the sky and surrounded Grian.
(I had way too much fun with that. Ok sorry I'll go back to normal now lol)

Happy with how the mansion had turned out, Grian absentmindedly wandered around the jungle. He dove underneath the bridges and between the vines of Scar's village. He weaved through the trees and swooped around vines. Flying up above the canopy, he decided to pay Mumbo a visit and perhaps cause some mayhem.

Grian landed gracefully on the edge of the main platform of Mumbo's overgrown temple base. He made his way forward, looking around for Mumbo.

Mumbo emerged from the other side of the centerpiece of his temple. 

"Hi Mumbo!" Grian said excitedly.

"What do you want?" snapped Mumbo.

"I just wanted to say hi..." Grian's confusion trailed into fear.

"Is that all? Go away, you annoying little brat," Mumbo replied, in a tone far too harsh to be his own.

Grian's eyes filled with tears. "Am I really just that to you?"

"Just what? Just nothing?" Mumbo asked cruelly.

"Nothing? But- you're my friend-" Grian was crying now. Did he really mean nothing to anyone?

"You have no real friends. All of them hate you, really, they're just pretending," Grian stepped closer to Mumbo, close enough to see that Mumbo's eyes were purple.

"Wait- Watchers?" Grian realized with a start.

"Figured it out, have you?" 'Mumbo' laughed. "Took you long enough. You're losing your touch, Xelqua."

Grian's eyes widened. "No, no, please no, not that name-" He inched backwards nervously.

"Weakling. Can't even hear a simple name?" 'Mumbo' stepped forwards and pulled out his sword.

Grian backed away, but 'Mumbo' kept moving forwards toward him. Grian jumped up into the air and tried to fly away, but he was stopped by a pain in his wings.

"None of that now, Xelqua," Grian was pulled back down to the ground roughly by 'Mumbo' grabbing them and yanking him downwards.

"Please, no, please..." Grian pleaded, but it was no use. 'Mumbo' swung the sword towards him, and Grian screamed as the world vanished into darkness.

Grian awoke hours later to a throbbing pain in his wings. He opened his eyes to find himself hanging from the ceiling by his wrists. He could tell by the scratchy feeling of the metal that his wings and ankles were chained together.

He was in a small, dim room. The only features were the iron door and bars on the wall in front of him.

"He's awake," came a voice from outside the room. 

"Good. Unlock it," a second voice commanded.

The door was opened, and in walked a tall figure. It was fully covered in black robes, and its voice was genderless. The only identifying feature was the Watcher's majestic magenta wings.

"Long time no see, Xelqua," the Watcher sneered.

"That's not my name. What do you want?" demanded Grian.

"You're in no position to be asking me questions. Do you know why you're here?" the Watcher replied.

"No, I just asked-" Grian tried to say, but the Watcher silenced him with a wave of their hand.

"You ran away from us, Xelqua," they said. "Now you will face the consequences. Do you know what happens to runaways?"

Memories came rushing back to Grian. He began to tremble at the thoughts...

"I see you do," Watchers kept their faces hidden, but Grian was sure this one was smirking.

"Wait- is there anything, any way, please-" Grian begged.

"Should have asked that before you deserted us," was the Watchers' only reply before they turned and left.

Grian shook in fear. The Watchers used captured renegades as test subjects... and Watchers were even worse than normal players, ruthless, cold, disengaged, and terrifying...

It started out with the simple methods of torture. Isolation, starvation, abandonment... Grian had lots of time to think, and it wasn't good. 

The last time he'd seen Mumbo, he'd been possessed, but his voice still rang inside Grian's head.

You have no real friends... all of us hate you, we're just pretending, really...

Surely the others didn't hate him. They loved him...

But when had one of them ever truly done something special for Grian?

Well, lots of times... he just couldn't remember any...

What if there were none? None to remember?

That couldn't be true...

If they really care about you, why haven't they come to rescue you?

The Watchers were hard to get past, though...

But if they were truly his friends, wouldn't they come anyway?

No, he wasn't worth that much...

Not worth that much...

Not worth it....

Not worth...

Not worth anything...

Worthless....

Hated...

What if no one missed him?

Surely they would miss him?

Right...?

Grian had no idea how long had passed before the Watcher came back. Finally, they unchained him, but abused as he was, he had no strength to fight back. They took him away for even worse methods of torture, or as they would prefer to say, tests..

They would shoot magic at Grian, which would engulf him and stab knives into every inch of his body. They would whip him, lashing his arms and legs when his wings grew too numb for him to react to it. They may have called them tests, but the only thing they seemed to be testing was how much pain they could inflict on Grian before he finally couldn't take it and died.

When he didn't respond to the whip, they would simply resort to using him as a target for their arrows and knives. Grian would be cut, shot, stabbed, and horribly hurt, and then they would heal him and do it all over again.

Throughout it all, Grian clung to a desperate strand of hope that someone would come for him. But as time went by, that hope grew weaker and weaker, until finally, he had given up altogether and simply stopped fighting. He did nothing to fend them off, and when he had gotten so beaten up that he couldn't stand anymore, the Watchers finally tossed him away and left him in a cell to die alone.

And so there Grian lay, curled on the floor, awaiting his inevitable death, having lost all hope that anyone in the world cared about him and in immense pain from all the various methods of torture the Watchers had found.

He wasn't worth it...

His friends had never come...

They would never come...

The Watchers were right, they all hated him.

He wasn't worth anything.

Maybe he would be lucky enough to die fast and save himself the pain. No one would care. He would die sooner or later, it was only a matter of time.

He was hated. Hurt. Unloved...

He was worthless and broken...

Grian had no idea how long he'd been laying there when the door opened and a figure stepped in. Grian was numb to the pain and the feeling of touch as they picked him up and carried him away from the jail.

They took him to a long corridor filled with thousands of portals. They hurried down it and stopped in front of one.

Grian was aware of them saying only one thing. 

"You're not hated by all Watchers, Xelqua."

Not by all watchers, maybe, but certainly by everyone else who knew him...

And that was how a horrified Bdubs found Grian, beaten up, unconscious, and nearly dead, on the spawn island. Luckily for Grian, Bdubs had happened to have somehow accidentally blown up himself and his bed while working on a Boomers project, or Grian might have died before anyone ended up back at spawn. 

Bdubs messaged the hermits. Some decided to take the fast but painful way just to get to their friend; purposefully breaking their beds and killing themselves to get there.

Bdouble0100: guys come quick i found grian at the spawn island and he's really hurt
Mumbo: STAY RIGHT THERE OMW NOW
Iskall85: omg oh no whats going ok brt-
Mumbo suffocated in a wall.
Iskall85 fell from a high place.
<Xisuma> !!!
<Xisuma> guys no one else kill themselves
<Xisuma> we can get there fast enough normally
<ZombieCleo> yeah guys dying doesn't make you cool although i can see why you might think that ;)
<Falsesymmetry> cleo!!!
<ZombieCleo> whaaaat?
<Xisuma> not now guys emergency going on atm!!
Falsesymmetry discovered the floor was lava.
ZombieCleo fell off a ladder.
<Xisuma> are you two trying to compete to see who can have the most interesting death!?!??
Stressmonster101 experienced kinetic energy.
<Xisuma> fine you wanna see interesting deaths?
Xisuma was pummeled by Snowball.
<ZombieCleo> wait what?!?!?
<Falsesymmetry> wth is that???
<Iskall85> idk if u guys were having a competition or smth but if u were x just won
<Mumbo> i cant believe im the one being responsible rn but can we save it
<Mumbo> cuz grian is kinda dying
<ZombieCleo> wow thx for ruining the mood mumbo
<Iskall85> guys were right next to each other now

"Oh, right," False glanced up from her communicator. The others did the same.

"Xisuma what is that?" Cleo asked.

"Shot by a snowball from a dispenser. Nearly impossible, but not quite," Xisuma explained.
(I have literally no idea if this actually works I just saw it listed on the MC wiki and it looked possible and cool, so it ended up in)

"Guys, please," Mumbo gestured to Grian.Bdubs headed back to his base; he wasn't needed anymore. Stress grabbed her emergency medical supplies from her ender chest and began tending to Grian's injuries.

Grian woke up in a white room.

No one was around. Grian sat up and looked around; he was in a small room he'd never seen before. It was definitely not something the Watchers would build, but it didn't seem particularly like any of the hermits' style either.

Shakily, Grian tried to step out of the bed. His legs were weak, but he managed to walk over to the door. He opened it and found a large open space; he was in one of Xisuma's towers. He heard rockets firing and backed into the room.

Xisuma burst into the room and found Grian standing there anxiously.

"Grian! You're awake!" Xisuma exclaimed.

Grian nodded.

"What happened to you?" Xisuma asked softly.

Grian glanced around and shook his head. "I don't wanna talk about it..."

"Okay, you can tell us when you're ready," Xisuma said calmingly.

Grian again looked anxious and fidgety, so Xisuma left him to himself.

Grian waited until Xisuma was long gone and crept out of the room. He stretched out his wings. They were sore, but miraculously not broken. 

Grian quickly ran over to the safety-tape lined exit and jumped out into the air. He caught himself and flew up into the sky. 

He made his way to his mansion and then collapsed on the floor of his hobbit hole. To his annoyance, he heard voices.

"Grian?" Iskall was calling his name.

Grian glanced around. He didn't want to deal with them right now... Grian ran down into his furnace room, dug down three blocks, and replaced the top. Then he sat and waited for them to leave.

Time passed slowly, but eventually, he heard rockets. He broke the block above his head and climbed out of the hole.

Why had they bothered coming to look for him?

Clearly they were trying to keep the illusion going.

None of them liked him, really.

He was, as Mumbo himself had said, just an annoying little brat.

The next few weeks passed similarly. Grian tried to avoid everyone. He didn't want to talk to them, didn't want their lies. He hid from anyone who tried to find him. Occasionally, he would meet someone in the shopping district. He would reluctantly engage in conversations with them, but get out of there as fast as he politely could.

Mumbo and Iskall were the worst. They were constantly coming to Grian's base, trying to find him. Grian hid from them, but he wished they would just go away and stop trying to pretend they cared about him. They didn't. No one did.

Grian felt so alone. He had no friends, nobody to go to, nobody even to talk to, except his parrot. But as great a pet as Professor Beak was, he couldn't talk back.

Grian didn't know what to do. Maybe he should just make life easier on everyone and leave. He couldn't or they'd come after him... Did he even want to live life anymore?

He pushed away those thoughts for a while before settling on an easier solution.

Grian was alone with his thoughts too much. He needed something to take his mind off of that... 

He pulled out his sword. Just a little bit... just enough to focus on so he wasn't trapped in his own head.

He dug the blade into his arm. The pain was relieving. Before he knew it, he'd cut deep, deeper than he'd meant to. He dismissed the worry and bound the wound, then pulled his sweater sleeve back over the bandage. He focused on the pain instead of his thoughts, and soon he'd dropped into a routine.

Gather sand and gravel, craft and trade to get stock, restock the barge, do another cut, build the mansion. Gather sand and graved, craft and trade, restock, cut, build. Gather, craft, restock, cut, build.

The cycle was endless. Eventually, Grian grew too tired to keep going. He was on his way back from the barge when he began to feel a wave of drowsiness overtake him. He sped home as fast as he could and barely managed to dive inside his hobbit hole. He heard the screech of winged death in the air and saw an army of phantoms dive towards him. Quickly, Grian barricaded the open entrance before they could attack him.

Grian collapsed on the floor, exhausted, and fell asleep.

He woke in the morning sore from laying on the hard floor all night. His arm was throbbing, and he was extremely dizzy. Why was he so dizzy?

He thought about his routine of the last while. He'd been... hurting himself and had he eaten or drank anything? That was probably why. Blood loss and not enough food. Grian ate a few golden carrots, but didn't leave the house. He ripped off his bandages. Many of the cuts were almost healed, although most would scar. Grian ran the sword down his arm, releasing blood from every single one.

The pain would probably have been horrible, but Grian was used to pain and his arm was so badly hurt that it couldn't hurt much more. 

Grian felt the weird sensation of blood rushing down his arm and he laid down and closed his eyes as the blood loss carried him away into darkness.

Mumbo and Iskall found Grian an hour later when they came to look for him again. They had been losing hope that they would ever see their friend again.

Iskall had broken open the barricade Grian had put up and the two had stood in shock for a moment at the state of their friend. Laying weakly on the floor, Grian's entire arm was covered in blood and blood pooled around him. The two panicked. Iskall lifted Grian into a bed as Mumbo frantically called for anyone who could help.

<Mumbo> guys guys guys omg omg come quick rn its grian omg hes hurt badly omg pls come
<Xisuma> mumbo calm down ill brt
<Mumbo> come quick pls omg
<Xisuma> ok no one else panic, i'll sort this out

Xisuma arrived a few minutes later, having flown as fast as physically possible to get there. He too was shocked at Grian's state.

They tried to clean up the blood, but it seemed like every part of Grian's arm was a cut. In the end, they poured water over his arm until they figured out that almost his entire arm had been cut open, and he'd torn off a thin strip of skin along the entire surface so that every single cut bled open. They wrapped the arm tightly until it stopped bleeding and forced him to drink regen potions until the skin grew back.

The cuts, even when healed, would scar. The three turned their attention to Grian himself.

Why had he been doing this? What could have caused the most energetic, happy, and upbeat hermit on the server to... cut himself?

Whatever had happened three weeks ago. That was when Grian had isolated himself; after that.

When Grian finally woke up that night, he found Iskall, Mumbo, and Xisuma all standing there, looking stern. He began to shake. 

"Why would you cut yourself?" demanded Iskall.

"What happened when you vanished?" asked Mumbo.

"Please tell us, Grian," Xisuma said.

Grian looked around. He was trapped, cornered, they were angry...

"S-so you've finally stopped pretending," he observed.

"What?" all three asked in unison.

"Just show it! I know it! I know you all hate me really but you just pretend! Stop pretending!" Grian yelled, beginning to cry.

"I know I'm worthless and you never came for me and you didn't care enough to come and now you're still pretending but we all know it's a lie, it always has been and you hate me!" Grian sobbed and wrapped his wings around himself, but not hiding his face.

"What- no, Grian! We don't hate you!" Xisuma's voice softened and he sat next to Grian.

"Where did you get the idea that we hated you?" Mumbo asked in surprise.

"Y-you," said Grian, before bursting into more tears.

Mumbo's eyes widened. "What? When?"

"Before they took me... they possessed you and you can't remember but I flew over to your base and you were there but they were controlling you and you said... you said I had no friends and that everyone was just pretending and really you hate me and then you never came for me and they tortured me and you didn't come and you do, you hate me, I wasn't worth saving..."

"Grian, who... tortured you?" Xisuma asked slowly.

"No! I don't want to tell you! Stop pretending! You already know this! Go away! I don't want to! Stop!" Grian shrieked.

Xisuma took off his helmet.

Mumbo and Iskall were surprised. Xisuma didn't keep his helmet on all the time, and they'd seen his face before, but it was still a rare occasion. Grian looked at him in surprise and confusion. Xisuma seemed to be... crying? 

"Grian, please, we don't hate you. We didn't come for you because we didn't know where you were. We don't know who took you, we don't know anything, but we want to help you."

Grian sighed and glanced around. "I guess- I guess- Watchers." At the sound of the name, he curled into a protective ball and said no more. Xisuma glanced at Mumbo and Iskall. 

"Go see if you can find anything about Watchers. Ask the others, look in books, check anything that might have info on them," Xisuma instructed.

"You won't find anything," Grian's muffled voice came through his wings.

"We can look," Xisuma replied.

Grian lowered his wings just enough to say, "You won't find anything because they aren't anywhere in a normal world. They- they're like magic. I encountered them when I lived in E-evo..." Grian started crying again, but continued. "They were ok until the End... they took me away from my friends and forced me to be one of them. I ran away after a while and that's why they took me."

Grian put his head on Xisuma's chest, wrapped his wings and arms around Xisuma, and refused to say anything else or release the admin.

Go, Xisuma mouthed to them. Mumbo and Iskall obeyed and headed off to find information.

Well, that's all. I might even write a part two. Okay, i definitely will because the original idea was literally just Mumbo gets possesed, Grian feels worthless and has a panic attack, the others comfort him, but that's WAY too cliche. I started writing and ended up with this and I actually really like it, even if it makes zero sense. But anyway, Grian hasn't had a REAL panic attack yet, so there will have to be more.